Uzbek (O‘zbek tili in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script; أۇزبېك ﺗﻴﻠی in Arabic script) is a Turkic language an the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 23.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Uzbek belongs to the Qarluq family of Turkic languages, and consequently its lexicon and grammar are most closely linked to the Uyghur language, while other influences rose from Persian, Arabic and Russian.